# opener
## English
### Etymology

From open +‎ -er.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈəʊ.pən.ə/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈoʊ.pən.ɚ/
* (General Australian) IPA: /ˈəʉ.pən.ə/, /ˈəʉp.nə/
** Audio (General Australian):(file)

### Noun

opener (plural openers)
* A person who opens something.
** 1863, The British Controversialist: And Literary Magazine, page 122:Have you, like the opener of this debate, discovered, sapiently enough, that "the peace party, with Lord Aberdeen at their head, were the chief cause of the war"?
* A device that opens something; specifically a tin-opener/can-opener, or a bottle opener.
* (in combination) An establishment that opens.
    The late-night openers in the mall include two restaurants and a clothing store.
* (card games) The player who starts the betting.
* (card games, in the plural) Cards of sufficient value to enable a player to open the betting.
* (metalworking) A person employed to separate sheets of hot metal that become stuck together.
* (theater) The first act in a variety show or concert.
* (cricket) A batsman or bowler who normally plays in the first two positions of an innings.
* (colloquial) The first in a series of events, items etc.; the first remark or sentence of a conversation.
* (sports) The first game played in a competition.
** 2011 September 24, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 67-3 Romania”, in BBC Sport‎:England were on the scoreboard after only one minute, Wilkinson, who missed five penalties in his side's opener against the Pumas, knocking over a three-pointer from bang in front, despite boos from the crowd.
* (sports) The first goal or point scored.
** 2011 January 15, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 4 - 3 Wolves”, in BBC‎:The opener came from a Jarvis ball which struck Aleksandar Kolarov en route to a lively round of pinball between City players before it was poked in by Milijas.
* (fishing) A period of time when it is legal to commercially fish.
* (baseball) A pitcher who specializes in getting the first outs of a game before being replaced, either by a long reliever or a pitcher who would normally start.
** 2018 August 23, Jon Tayler, “How the Tampa Bay Rays Reinvented the Concept of Starting Pitching”, in Sports Illustrated‎:The Rays debuted the opener—in which a reliever starts the game and throws anywhere from one to three innings, then gives way to a new pitcher, who will usually throw three to five as essentially a second starter—on May 19 against the Angels, using veteran righty Sergio Romo to pitch the first.

#### Hyponyms

* bottle opener
* can opener
* tin opener

#### Derived terms

* bottle-opener
* door opener
* eye-opener (noun)
* for openers
* jar opener
* letter opener
* pew-opener
* pipe-opener

#### Translations
### Adjective

opener
* (phonetics) comparative form of open: more open
** 1913 October, Edwin H. Tuttle, “Notes on Romanic Speech-History”, in The Modern Language Review, volume 8, number 4, page 484:The letter y is also used for the slightly opener non-fricative sound heard in English year.
** 1982, J. C. Wells, Accents of English: Volume 3: Beyond the British Isles, page 512:Lower-middle-class speakers in New York showed a strong tendency to report themselves as using [æː] in the word pass, although as objectively observed they tended to use the pronunciation with [ɛːə]. And in the most formal style (word lists) they produced on average an opener quality than the upper-middle-class speakers – an example of Labov-hypercorrection.

#### Coordinate terms

* backer, fronter, closer, rounder

### Anagrams

* -perone, Perone, pereon, perone, poneer, reopen, repone